Island Blend Entertains Big Crowd At Splash

May 25, 1998|By ROGER CATLIN; Courant Rock Critic

This is the weekend when American flags fly by the hundreds.

At the fourth annual Memorial Day Weekend Reggae Splash Saturday in downtown Hartford, flags also flew lustily -- but mostly from Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago, Grenada and other points on the West Indies.

The proud nationalism from the islands was also reflected in the music. What was once dominated by Jamaican reggae was now open not only to American hip-hop but also to Trinidadian soca.

It all blended seamlessly in the long, well-attended show that was topped, well after midnight, by Beenie Man, the reigning star of the reggae world, whose latest album has topped Billboard's reggae music charts for most of the year.

Beenie Man, in leather hat and natty suit, topped the all-day festival with ease and power, shifting from song to dance-hall toasting in a randy style that made him No. 1. By the time he appeared, though, it had been nearly 12 hours since gates opened at the LAZ Parking Lot, at the site of the old Hartford Hilton across from Bushnell Park.

Reggae Splash must be ranked now as one of the biggest annual outdoor concert events in Hartford, seeming to draw large numbers of people down from Boston as well. The event was much more calm and better run this year, thanks probably to heavy police presence outside that prevented the jumps over the pressed-wood-covered chain-link fence that caused panic and security breaches last year.

And when very minor trouble cropped up, the performers took people to task, as did the rapper Busta Rhymes, who interrupted his big 1996 hit ``Woo Hah!! Got You In Check'' to address a small group sternly: ``Hey yo! Hey yo! Do not disrespect my show!''

He got a cheer from the crowd that seemed stingy on their cheers and continued with one of the best- received performances of the day, moving through hits like ``Dangerous'' ``Fire It Up'' and even a bit of ``Victory,'' the Puff Daddy hit on which he appears. It was a stronger appearance than his shorter show at the Puff Daddy concert earlier this year; he's scheduled to come back to Hartford July 25 as part of the Smokin' Grooves tour.

Speaking in some Jamaican patois, Rhymes seemed comfortable in either hip-hop or Jamaican culture -- and certainly was welcomed as such.

A slightly more difficult fit was the soca music of Krosfyah, which, while it had some rapping common to hip-hop and dance-hall reggae, had a more slick, pop sheen on its sound.

Better was Iwer George, a soca vocalist who did his best to keep all fans of the show interested.

Pop has been a part of island music all along, though. Still, it was surprising in the short set of Tonto Metro, who served mostly to delay the Beenie Man set, that his singer attempted a straight version of LeAnn Rymes' ``How Do I Live.''